“We have duly deliberated, discussed, and decided a response. We are willing to pay tribute to Sultan Alaeddin if the bey promises to be merciful in his acceptance of our surrender.” Councilor Theophilus Romulides looked as though he had bitten into a lemon.

  “You will?” The question may have been rude, but I did not feel I could believe my ears.

  The bey’s bombardment had caused minor damage to one part of the wall. The dedicated work of three fire mages plus one thaumaturge and the sacrifice of a mech with its priceless elemental cage had—as far as I had seen—only resulted in the destruction of several buildings not integral to the defense of the city. It had also placed the bombard at risk; if the round had burst early, it would have devastated the bey’s own forces, putting at risk the thaumaturge whose talents had been integral to putting controlling magics into the shot at the moment of its firing. Even if the bey were willing to sacrifice his entire mech force, he would not be able to supply more than one such special shot per day.

  The black-clad man was silent in the face of my doubt, and it was the colorful man who spoke next. “The council was unanimous in its decision. The city is soaked in terror. It stands already at the mercy of the bey’s great bombard upon the heights—and he has five more not yet brought to bear in reserve.”

  For the council to decide unanimously suggested two things: First, the round’s destructive effects had continued beyond when I had observed it—perhaps due to the elemental spirit bound to it. Second, the city council, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, believed that the bey had the resources to carry out considerably more bombardment. They did not know that he faced real constraints in the supply of enchanted shots—and, for that matter, in the supply of mundane shot and powder.

  The great naval bombards required a prodigious quantity of powder, and stones of appropriate size ground down to a precisely round enough shape were also not easy to supply. Only one of the other bombards was of caliber close enough to share shot with the one mounted on the hill. A third thing that pressed upon my mind: The bey had promised that if the gates opened before I returned, I would receive an immediate promotion and earn a greater share of the spoils. At the time, I had thought it a jest; now, I could see that prize within reach.

  “The bombardment may resume in the very minute I begin my return,” I said. “As I said, the bey does not expect you to do anything but play for time and deny him your surrender. Unless the city’s gates have been already opened wide as a sign of surrender, he will treat the parley as concluded as soon as I have turned about.”

  The colorful man’s eyes widened. “That would be very uncivil of the bey,” the man began, but was interrupted by his black-clad companion.

  “Hold here, then,” Theophilus said, both hands raised. He swallowed nervously. “I will go and have the city gates opened wide. We have decided upon surrender, as the damage to the city shall be too great if your bombardment continues, and we must have you return in peace rather than suffer another such blow while our message of surrender is in transit. The bey has us at his mercy whether we wait to see if he will promise it or not.”

  After the black-clad man left, the colorfully dressed man adopted a resigned expression and introduced himself.

  “My name is Erwan,” he told me. “I am not a citizen here, but rather a hired man—the battles I fought in Vreton near the end of the Century War earned me expertise in modern warfare, expertise that is rare in these backward parts. The council has been worried about the city’s defenses; most of the cannons the city holds for defense are older than I am. If your attack had come five or ten years hence, we might have had a better chance at standing you off.”

  I inclined my head, half of a nod. “The Golden Empire seems a poor protector—we are upon its doorstep, and yet they can only send galleys to face the sultan’s steamship.”

  “Yes,” Erwan said. “But do not underestimate them; there are steam barges that serve the rivers, and they have steam carriages that go upon rails. And the Sultanate is not so far ahead if that barge is typical of the sultan’s fleet. Leon’s admirals would have short work of that,” Erwan said. “It is large enough to carry a decent battery, but with just the one aft wheel, it cannot turn in place like the sidewheeler cruisers can, or turn easily at all, and any one failure of the drive systems will leave the whole ship paralyzed completely.”

  “I saw. I was watching with a spyglass from the heights,” I said. “Maneuver was clearly the weak point of our side of the battle—I am sure Pasha Mustafa will bring complaint about such to the sultan himself. But why tell me this advice?”

  “I am a fighting man. My stock in trade is my mastery of military matters,” Erwan said. “I think my most current client will no longer have need of my services, and I must sell my sword elsewhere.”

  “And you wish to prove yourself less foolish than your failures suggest?” I asked.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  The man frowned sourly, and I took note of the fact that he did not say which side of the Century War he had fought on. The fact that he had sought employment hundreds of leagues from the nearest of the imperial possessions of Leon the Usurper and over a thousand leagues from Vreton and Loegria suggested to me that he had fought on the losing side of that war.

  “One need not be a fool to fail,” Erwan said defensively.

  “True,” I said, holding up my flask of retsina by way of an apology. “My father failed in the end, and I would not call him a fool. When I advance to captain within the ranks of the Sultanate, the rank will qualify me as deserving an aide—perhaps I should even say the greater rank all but requires it.”

  Erwan took a long pull from the flask, then wiped his mouth with a grimace. “By Saint Tudwal, I am well sick of pine-flavored wine.” He shook his head. “A junior officer’s aide—well, perhaps I shall take you up on that, anyway.”

  “Today, I hold status as a junior officer, but I have always been a prince,” I said. “Albeit one who does not yet hold a domain.”

  “Yet?” Erwan passed me the flask back.

  “Yet,” I affirmed, swigging from the flask. “My cousin Vladislav the Dragonslayer is—for now—Sultan Alaeddin’s tributary in Wallachia. The House of Dan succeeded the House of the Dragon with my father’s death.”

  “Who was your father?” Erwan asked.

  “The Dragon,” I said. “Have you heard of him?”

  Erwan shook his head. “Any man named as a dragon must be a doughty one, though,” he said. “I am sure he was a great fighter. Well, Vlach prince, I see the gates are opening now—I shall keep your offer in mind, but we should each return to our foreign masters for now, my Greeks and your Turks. Farewell.”

  “Farewell to you as well. I am glad that we did not meet on the battlefield—I am sure you are a doughty fighter yourself.” I sketched out a brief bow of respect before mounting up on my horse, and the colorfully dressed man returned it with his hat in his hand.

  The bey did not waste any time putting men into motion, though his first priority was not entering the city.

  “Karaca—you will guard for treachery,” Bey Ishak said, after assigning a company of arquebusiers, a company of spear-bearing oarsmen, three mechs, and a very disappointed Mevlana to Karaca’s command. “If we occupy the city without difficulty—then you will move with all haste to join us, but by stages. Move but one gun at a time, and stay with the hilltop bombard until I send word otherwise. Dragon’s son—Captain and Dragon’s son that you are now—you will have pride of place leading the cavalry into the city ahead of the main force, and I therefore have special instructions for you.”

  I nodded, keenly aware of the jealous look that Mevlana gave me. He had been born to the saddle and bow, and his family had raised him with the expectation of importance. While I was a prince, I was also a foreigner, an infidel, and a pretender to a throne held by another, all of which tempered (or arguably debased) my royal status. Nor did I have age, seniority, or magical talent, at least not any that had been exhibited thus far, all of which could have excused my rapid elevation. Some resentment was therefore understandable.

  The bey did not seem to give any such consideration to Mevlana’s expression; he continued without pause. “You shall proceed to the harbor. There, you shall send out a messenger on a rapidly requisitioned rowboat—and also signal to the steamship, waving your banners high. Once the watchers aboard the steamship have signaled back to us, you shall return to the midpoint of the city. From there, you will measure the midpoints from the western wall to the center and from the southern wall to the center, stationing a man at each of those two corners. Then you shall mark the place where there is the intersection of the line west from the southern semi-midpoint and the line south from the western semi-midpoint.”

  “West from the southern semi-midpoint, south from the western semi-midpoint. I understand,” I said. “And then?”

  “That is all,” Bey Ishak told me. “But do not forget that you must get the attention of the steamship, and you must send a man who can give Pasha Mustafa a good account of what has taken place. From the vantage point of the steamship, even watchers with good spyglasses upon the highest decks may only see the bombard on the heights and not the interior of the city or the road leading to it; your appearance on the docks will be the first indication to Pasha Mustafa that we have gotten the surrender.”

  From the ends of the city back to the midpoint and to the western and southern semi-midpoints between was an ominously specific parade route. I hoped that the bey merely wished to show the precision of his soldiers’ obedience to his commands. After discussing the bey’s orders with the bannerman and his brother, I became confident that the bannerman could identify midpoints and semi-midpoints of the city, but I was not confident that anyone else could, or did, truly understand what the situation with the city was.

  My procession through the city was watched closely by concerned citizens; however, even though my soldiers were few in number and riding far ahead of the main body of the army, we met with no resistance. The city had been successfully cowed; the few professional members of its guard had met with us either at the gate or in the center point of the city. With matters in the city well in hand and myself in personal command of the full understanding of the course of events that Pasha Mustafa lacked, I nominated myself as a messenger and delegated the remainder of my orders to the bannerman, sending myself via rowboat back to the steamship.

  A note on geography: A direct sea journey from Hermonassa to the nearest of the Seven Great Isles (either Crete or Lesbos) would be about one thousand miles. As alluded to in the previous discussion of the usual routes of travel around the Axine Sea, the actual distance traveled by a typical sailing ship journeying from one to the other could be as great as two thousand miles. The reference to Vreton and Loegria suggests that